


Tabula Rasa

by spacehopper



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Horror, Ink as come, M/M, Writing on Skin, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 09:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14973719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: Jon wants to see more. Elias provides a way.





	Tabula Rasa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



“You have to know more.” Jon slammed his hand down on Elias’s desk with a force that surprised him. But he’d had enough, dead end after dead end. And while Elias had reluctantly revealed his lack of true omniscience, that didn’t mean there wasn’t more he could do.

“It’s you who has to know more, Jon. We’ve been over this.” Elias barely glanced up from the week’s scheduling. Wednesday, and he did so hate to be interrupted. All the better then that Jon had chosen to make his case now. 

“And there’s nothing you can do? Because I seriously doubt that.” 

And to Jon’s surprise, Elias smiled.

“Are you certain this is what you want, Jon?” He wasn’t looking at his scheduling anymore. He’d pushed it aside, one hand lingering on the grid filled with carefully inked letters and numbers, but his eyes focused entirely on Jon.

Jon took a step back.

“I’m certain I don’t. But I need it.” He sounded like an addict. “To stop the Unknowing.”

He hated the way Elias’s lips curved, hated more the way his heart murmured as Elias takes one step, then another. He pressed something into Jon’s hand. An address written on crisp white cardstock. 

“Meet me tonight.” 

Jon wanted to argue, but Elias’s back was turned, his dismissal writ in the hard line of his shoulders and his preternatural focus on scheduling. So Jon left, the edges of the card cutting into his hand.

*

The building was utterly normal, and Jon didn’t know why he’d expected otherwise. After all, he’d thought for years that Elias was a simple administrator, greying hair, grey suit, and pale grey eyes. The sort of respectable that made even the most devout skeptic take the Institute seriously. So it made sense that he lived here, in a building that was gleaming though not ostentatious, behind a door that was as grey as the man himself. 

Jon raised his hand to knock. Then he tried the handle.

It was open, as he’d expected. Elias knew he was coming, could see his progress, had likely opened the door at what he’d judged to be the right time. Scheduling, with a touch of supernatural mystique. His palm slipped on the handle as he closed the door behind him, and he wiped it on his trousers. He began to remove his coat, absentmindedly reaching for a coat hook.

It was there. He’d known it. And he knew too where he’d find Elias. 

The highly polished floorboards creaked under his feet. They were bare. He hadn’t—except he had, hadn’t he? So focused on the coat he hadn’t realized he’d removed socks and shoes. His fingers were working on the top button of his shirt, his hand on his belt. There was a door before him

Jon froze.

He’d long since stopped guessing at what might or might not be possible. Skepticism hadn’t saved him, and there was no point playing at incredulity. Something about this place was effecting him, Elias’s presence or perhaps the building itself. And it wasn’t that he was being coerced. His hand dropped to his side easily, and his fingers relaxed on his belt. A shiver ran through him. No turning back. He raised a hand to knock, and waited for an answer.

“Come in.” 

As Jon entered the room, he couldn’t help but notice it was oddly barren. A bed, black sheets neatly pressed. A desk, a few papers stacked upon it. And in the center of the room, what looked almost like a doctor’s table. 

Elias stood beside it.

He was dressed as he so often was, in a crisp grey suit with matching shoes. But the jacket was gone, as was his tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow. As if he thought his hands might get dirty. 

“What are you going to do to me?” 

“A ritual, of sorts. One to help you see.”

“And why do I need to be naked for it?” 

“Ah, you knew, did you? Excellent. You barely need my help at all, with the progress you’re making.”

“Why, Elias?”

“Why indeed.” He was smiling again, small and satisfied, a teacher proud of the conundrum that he’d proposed to a clever student. And Jon had always been clever.

He let his shirt all to the floor, one last act of defiance. The room was warm, almost too warm, and yet as Jon began to unfasten his belt, he shivered. Some part of him, one that he couldn’t quite tap, knew what was happening here. Understood what Elias was going to do.

Jon let his trousers fall next to his shirt. 

As he stepped towards the table, Elias’s eyes lingered on him, a strange heat turning them stormy. Suddenly self-conscious, Jon crossed his arms over his chest.

“Your boxers as well.” He savored the words, and Jon tried to ignore the heat in his gut. Embarrassment at being seen like this by his boss. 

The boxers joined the rest of his clothes, and he met Elias’s gaze defiantly, daring him to comment on how Jon was already half-hard. But Elias said nothing. He simply held out a thick length of dark green silk. 

“For your eyes.”

“I thought the point was to help me see,” Jon said as Elias stepped behind him, the blindfold dangling from his hand. The silk pressed over his eyes, and Jon almost leaned into Elias’s warmth, catching himself just in time. Struggling for some sort of human contact. He snorted. There was nothing human here. 

“You need to learn to see with your eye.” Jon shuddered as Elias placed a too cold hand on his hip, guiding him towards the table. And shuddered again when he realized what Elias had said. But there was no turning back now.

“I—how do you want me to do this?” He was almost grateful for the blindfold. It added a certain unreality to the situation. With it on, Jon could almost pretend this was some strange dream, a twisted fantasy. That he wasn’t turning around to sit awkwardly on the padded table, feet no longer touching the ground.

“Turn onto your stomach.” Elias stroked down Jon’s back, fingers soft and oddly yielding, like he wasn’t touching with his fingers at all. And yet when Jon leaned back to check, Elias simply pushed him forward, hand now firm. What Jon expected. 

What Jon _expected_.

His stomach dropped as Elias pressed him down, and he tried to ignore the slight scrape over his shoulder, the way a point lingered on the lowest vertebrae of his neck. Elias tapped there once, a light prick, and Jon squirmed against the table. Pillowing his head in his arms, he tried to get comfortable as he listened to Elias’s footfalls, the slight creak as he crossed the floorboard nearest to Jon’s head. The rustling of paper cut through the silence, as if Elias were consulting notes. Something like a Leitner, perhaps? Bile rose in his throat at the mere idea, but it did seem a common path to power. A path that Jon himself was treading. 

“Are you actually going to do anything?” His voice cracked, and he winced, shifting against the table and then cutting off a groan. Despite the face Elias had done next to nothing, he was fully hard now. From the friction, maybe. But he’d barely moved, had barely been touched. Except by the briefest brush of nothing like fingers and Elias’s unrelenting gaze.

He flushed, and tried to hold as still as possible. It was really all quite natural, that being put into this situation would be arousing. Elias might’ve been a bit on the older side, but he wasn’t unattractive. And here Jon was, naked and blindfolded in some weird room in his utterly normal flat. It wasn’t unusual at all, that it would effect him this way. 

“I think that’s enough.” 

Jon tensed, turning his head towards where Elias stood watching. The paper rustled again, and heavy feet clicked on the floor. Elias’s hands smoothed down his back, forcing him to flatten further against the table. When he reached Jon’s arse, he couldn’t help bucking into the touch, embarrassing as it was. 

Elias’s hands tightened, digging into his flesh. “Restrain yourself, Jon. I’ll be starting the work. If you move, I may need to begin anew.” 

Longer here, world dark and aching. No, he couldn’t. Jon took a deep breath, burying his face in the crook of his elbow and trying to relax. 

“Very good.” 

A surge of warmth in his chest, some remnant of the child who’d always wanted to please his teachers, the young man trying to earn praise from his professors, and who had never quite managed. Too odd, too arrogant, and clever, but never in quite the right way. What had Elias said?

“You were always meant to be the Archivist.” Echoing his thoughts. 

Jon wished he could say he hated it.

But there was little time for any sort of maudlin contemplation. A prick against his arm, followed by a sharp drag. Not cutting, no. It wasn’t sharp enough to break skin, the pressure only sufficient to make it hard for Jon not to twitch in response. A hand pressed hard against the back of his head, holding him down. Reminding him that this would all go on much longer if he moved.

Elias didn’t speak, so Jon focused on trying to see, whatever that meant. Some sort of second sight? An out of body experience? He drew in a sharp breath Elias pressed particularly hard against his spine, in the center of his back, making his way down in loops and lines, pulling back and returning again. What was he doing? He knew, or he should know, the thought buried in the back of his mind. Elias’s motions continued downwards, cresting the top of his arms, becoming slower, more precise. It took everything in Jon not to tense as he continued, following the curve inward. He stopped just shy of the spot Jon had been dreading, then drew back. Admiring his work?

“Turn over,” Elias said. And then Jon knew.

“You’re writing. What?” He gasped as he felt a sharp prick against the inside of his thigh. He’d get no answer from Elias. Not tonight, perhaps not ever. All he could do was embrace the path he’d chosen.

Jon turned over, the table covering sticking to his skin. He’d been sweating. He hadn’t noticed, too intent on Elias to feel the reactions of his body. Weird, thinking of it that way. As something separate, to observe rather than experience. And wrong. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t—

“Ah!” The cry was torn from his lips, ragged and wet, as Elias began to carefully print words across his chest, digging in harder than before. Punishment, or—

“What are you writing?” He layered his speech with power, and felt Elias’s hands waver, the point of the pen vanishing. No, not a pen. Jon swallowed the thought. “What are you?”

“More than you can understand.” The points grew anew, sharp, and Jon cried out again. Elias’s voice was layered, thick with something dark and deep. Beholding? It had to be. He was working more quickly now, Jon’s questions or some other ritual necessity making him frantic. As Elias reached Jon’s groin, he assumed it would stop like before.

“Don’t move.” A warning, not a command. Jon froze, then shuddered as impossibly pointed fingers began to pick out letters on his cock.

“Is this—” Pain, even with Elias being as gentle as he was, but there was ecstasy in it, whether from the magic or the discovery of a bizarre new fetish. Cock-writing. It’d certainly make Georgie laugh. “—Elias, is this really necessary?” Any further inquiries were cut off in a moan as Elias finished his work on the slit, then stroked up his length, almost the way he might smooth a piece of paper, ironing out the wrinkles. Admiring his work. He stroked again, and before Jon could think better of it, he bucked into the warm circle of his hand. The pointed tips were gone, and for a moment, Jon was almost disappointed.

“You can move now.” He tightened his grip as he said it. After the writing, it was all too much. Jon spurted over Elias’s hand, and for an instant he saw it. Dark, endless eyes, filled with hunger. For him. 

And then only a dim green light, as Elias stepped back, feet thudding on the wooden floor. 

“Clean yourself up. Feel free to take your time, and take the day off tomorrow, if you’d like.” The door clicked shut behind him, leaving echoing, watchful silence in his wake.

When Jon removed the blindfold, his skin was barren. 

*

Even if he couldn’t see them, the words itched. He checked more times than he could count, tracing letters he couldn’t feel with his fingers but instead with something deeper, hooked into flesh and mind and soul. They were incomplete, he knew. A thrill ran through him, and he wanted to believe it was dread and not anticipation. He had to believe it was dread, not the electric joy of dark eyes boring into his skull.

Sometimes, he wanted to be seen.

“Gotta watch out for that itching. Might be worms,” Tim said as he passed by, a binder under his arm. Jon shoved his sleeve down and bit back a retort. It was so much worse than worms.

It was so much better. 

“Don’t know why I’m your errand boy, but the boss wanted me to give you this.” He tossed a card carelessly in Jon’s direction. It was all Jon could do not to throw himself after it as it fluttered to the floor, coming to rest inches from his foot. Tim was watching him through hooded eyes, and Jon managed to summon the dismissive look he was clearly expecting. He snorted, then left the room.

Jon reached for the card.

On it was a time and date. Tonight. Elias’s flat again. The place hadn’t left Jon’s dreams since that night. He felt incomplete, empty. He needed this. Whatever Elias had done, he had to finish it. 

The rest of the day passed in a blur, reading through piles of statements interspersed with bouts of tracing the letters on his arms, his legs, his chest. When it finally came time to meet Elias, Jon practically ran for the tube, barely managing to give Martin a wave on the way out.

The ride there passed in sick anticipation. He hated that he’d agreed to this, hated what it had done to him, the ache it had opened inside of him. It was worse than before, in a way. Like a child with poor vision given glasses too weak to truly see. Just enough better so that he knew what he was missing. 

When he finally rang the bell, his hands were sweating. He wiped them on his trousers, toe tapping as he waited for Elias to answer. And then he remembered. The knob turned as easily before, and Jon made he way into the flat, down the long corridor. 

This time, there was no table. Instead a massive armchair sat in its place, green leather lurid in the lamplight. In the shadows beyond the chair, Jon saw a pair of massive wings, with markings like eyes. 

And then Jon saw Elias.

He couldn’t have moved that quickly, but the chair was no longer empty. Instead it held Elias, legs spread, holding a hand out to Jon. A shadow shifted behind the moonlit window, and Jon started. But no, it was just an owl. Silent and ever watchful.

Laid across Elias’s legs was the blindfold. Jon knew without being told that he was to put it on. He knelt before Elias, hissing as his knees hit the hard floor. But as he reached for the blindfold, Elias stopped him.

“Let me.” 

Jon bowed his head, shivering as Elias’s pointed fingers combed through his hair. There was the soft brush of feathers at the back of his neck, and his vision was cut off, a firm knot holding the blindfold in place.

“Jon, this is your last chance to turn back. Understand that while this will help you, it will almost remove more of your humanity.” Elias almost sounded like he regretted it. Like he was still human enough to feel regret. 

“Too late already.” He wanted it now. Needed it. 

“I thought as much.” Elias sounded fond, quill-sharp fingertips running over Jon’s lips. “Remember, you must swallow every drop. If you don’t, the ritual will remain incomplete.”

“Every drop,” Jon repeated. Of what, he dared not ask. Instead he listened to cloth that rustled like wings, and waiting for something to touch his lips.

Despite what Elias had said, he still jerked back in shock when hot flesh brushed his lips. Elias hand tightened in his hair, pulling Jon forward. His mouth was suddenly dry. Was this Elias’s ancient ritual? A blow job? Once upon a time, Jon would’ve said it was all a creepy mind game, a way to screw with his employees, and apparently just screw them. But he knew what had come before was real. He couldn’t doubt. So he parted his lips, and let Elias into his mouth.

He was gentle, at first, only the tip pressed in, allowing Jon to relax, to breath, fingers dragging against the fabric of his trousers. A prick of sensation on the sensitive underside of Jon’s ear, and he found himself opening his mouth wider, lips stretching painfully. How big was Elias? Not beyond human norms, certainly. But bigger than he’d taken before. And yet it was almost easy, as Elias pushed deeper. Breath coming through his nose, slow and easy, and the tip of his cock hitting the back of Jon’s throat.

At that, Jon started, only Elias’s grip on his hair keeping him in place. “Every drop,” he murmured, words a benediction against Jon’s fear. He could feel it now, the slow seep of liquid at the back of his throat, acrid and chemical. For a moment, it was as if he were back at his desk, the gnawing need for a cigarette digging at his insides, his mouth around a pen. Biting too hard, and then—

Ink. 

Jon almost choked. Ink was slowly leaking from Elias’s cock, sliding down his throat and flooding his mouth the same way that broken pen had. But it was so much more than that, and it was only increasing in flow. And it was unlike any real ink, the chemical tang was undercut by a strange brine, like the ink from a squid Jon had once had, the creature itself stewed in it. Jon swallowed. The ink went down so easily, just like squid had. And worse, he was getting hard. 

He knew, somehow, that he couldn’t touch himself. Not that Elias would stop him, no. But that it would break the ritual. Even as his cock strained against his trousers, he kept his hands clenched around his knees, his legs as still as possible. Elias thrust deeper still, the leather creaking and Jon groaning in response.

“You’re doing so well.” Elias’s words were almost inaudible. Jon wasn’t even sure he truly heard them so much as felt them, scribed into his skin. He sucked on Elias’s cock, and finally felt Elias respond properly, an erratic movement into Jon’s mouth. And the ink flowed all the harder.

“Truly a great Archivist in the making.” His hands pressed into Jon’s eyes, and it should’ve hurt. But instead all Jon felt was pleasure, leaning harder into the touch. “The greatest yet that I’ve seen.” 

But he’d only known Gertrude, hadn’t he? And yet from his words—

A gush of ink, and another thrust. The thought was dislodged as Jon swallowed and swallowed, more than he thought possible, the ink coating his mouth, his throat, his very being. Elias’s fingers were digging into his cheek, and he felt something wet drip down the side, onto Elias fingers. His hands were shaking as he reached up, collecting what had to be blood and drawing swirling lines in it. Drawing letters.

And then Elias groaned, his voice reverberating in Jon’s bones. And the ink stopped. 

Behind the blindfold, Jon’s eyes were shut as he slumped against Elias’s legs, lips aching as his now flaccid cock was withdrawn. Jon was still hard, but he dared not touch himself, afraid that the ink might leak out. Absurd, impossible. Horrifying. And yet all he felt was a floating warmth, and the brush of a kiss against his temple.

“Sleep now, Jon. In the morning, you’ll see.”

*

Jon could hear the silence. It made no sense. There was no sound here, no footfalls as he ran between shadowed trees, his path lit by a thin beam of moonlit. Wings beat behind him, and they made no sound, but he could hear.

The forest ended, and he skidded to a halt. Waiting. For what, he didn’t know. He just knew he had to wait, for as long as it took. Even if eons passed and the world faded into dust he would keep waiting. 

One tree stood before him, stark and scraggly in the moonlit. The owl landed upon it, and spread brindled wings. No, not brindled. They were words. In languages that were long forgotten, and never to be. And he could read them all. He shaded his eyes against them, and then—

Jon walked down the sunlit halls of the Institute to Elias’s office. He hadn’t responded to Martin’s greeting, Tim’s snide remark, Melanie’s veiled threat, or Basira’s canny look. They’d faded, mere errata among the pages he read now. The door to Elias’s office swung open, and Jon stepped through, discarding his clothing, letting it fall to the floor. He held out his arms, and admired the swirling black ink. Secrets twisted around him, binding him here, showing him now. 

Before him, Elias turned around, dark circles in an all too human face.

And Jon had been rewritten. 

*

“Tea?”

Jon dropped the pen he’d been chewing, staring up at Martin with wild eyes. From the pitying stare Martin was giving him, he looked as bad as he felt. He accepted the tea without a word, knocking it all back. Hot and sweet, just how he liked it. Setting it back down on the desk, he found Martin eying his arm, where his sleeve had ridden up.

“Taking notes?” Martin gestured at the exposed spot, small smile on his lips.

“Something like that,” Jon said, tugging the sleeve back into place. 

“I always used to do that. Bit of a blank slate, skin. You can always wipe it clean.” He scooped up the now empty cup and wandered out of the office, apparently satisfied with the level of cheer he’d spread. 

Jon stared down at his arm, peeling back the sleeve. The words swam before him, and he began to write.

You can always wipe it clean.


End file.
